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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



Washington's girthday 



SO<d\JKnifi 




l^as it fhy ilestiny thai made ihee greuiV 
H"f? -fo .^uc7i heigliis tan never man ailalh- 
%ighs hopeless oimv the aspirant for thy .rfate? 
"Wyas he oiD choice but sigh for it in vain? 
l|.s- there snch glory fur beyDnd mir reach ? 
11^ 6/ ^n. To him who sT-rnggJes for the pri-r 
i^rund is the lesson that thy life clcxth teach : 
'^ruth was the Poiver that raised thee to the shies, 
©n tr^ih and honor vas thy gceatne.-s founrled. 
t^oi else through time had thus thy praise resDunilc 

1/ riicodosia Cn 



V I-I 1 



OJRATIOf) AHD ODES 

OBERLIN COLLEGE, 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



AN ORATION 



DELIVERED ON WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY, 1891 



WILLIAM G. FROST 
It 




Great Captains, with their guns and drams," 

Disturb our judgment for an hour,g 

But at last silence comes; 

These all are gone, and, standing like a tower. 

Our children shall behold his fame, 

The kindly-earnest, brave, foreseeing man, 

Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame, 

New birlh of our new soil, the first American. 

• — Lowell. 



THE OBKRLIK NEWS PB1IS9 



.f^ 



CotyrighUd 1891, l>y Wm. G. Frost 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



Mr. President^ JLadics and Gentlemen : 

The best teaching is by example. Ideas are most 
potent when embodied ir\ living men, and thus invested 
with personality. The surest way to foster any noble 
sentiment is to select some event which illustrates it, or 
some hero who personifies it, and to set apart for that 
event or that hero a commemorative day. Let the arti- 
san lay aside his tools, the matron her household cares, 
the student his Dooks, and the very children their play. 
Let the pressure of routine be lifted ; let our souls ex- 
pand, and our best feelings assert themselves, while the 
great lesson is impressed upon our hearts. 

American patriotism is reenforced by four such 
commemorative days. The sun of July is greeted by 
earth-shaking cannon and sky-piercing rockets, which 
assert with boisterous acclaim the independence of a new 
nation. 

The breath of May sweeps over a more quiet gath- 
ering. It brings flowers — as though kind nature were 
a sharer of our grief — flowers for the humble <rrave of 
the private soldier; and it reminds us of the million arms 
that can strike as one for the defence of a righteous 
cause. 

The dull sky of November is a fitting background 
ior the festival of household cheer. Thanksgiving 
teaches us to love our homes, to revere a pious ancestry, 
and to worship God. 

And there is one other national day. The snows 
of February remind us of the spotless fame of him who 
was our first great national representative and leader. 



4 

This is a most important anniversary. Aristotle 
reminds us that praise is an inverted precept. To say, 
" Do thus and so," is a precept ; to say, " He is noble 
because he hath done thus and so," is praise. It is a 
worthy task therefore to praise, to eulogise such a man 
as Washington. What does our country need more 
than those precepts regarding public service and leader- 
ship which come to us from a lile like his? 

Doubtless we shall make the best use of this oc- 
casion if we interpret it broadly and liberally. We need 
not confine ourthoughts to a single name — although that 
were amply sufficient — but may make of this a kind of 
♦'Leader's Day." We cannot set apart a day for each 
of our great m.en, — there are too many, thank God, 
even in our first century - but w^e may group them all 
with Washington who was the first. 

One year ago we listened to a descripdon of the Fa- 
ther of his Country which I am sure we can never for- 
get. It would be presumptuous for me to touch that 
theme to-da}'. I ask your leave, therefore, to present 
a kindred subject the Preserver of his Country, 
Abraham Lincoln. 

Our great representative leaders are perhaps our 
chief national possession. They are not ancient land- 
marks, but beacon-lights for the future. They have set 
a standard of public and private excellence. Aeschines, 
the second orator of Greece, has left us the profound 
maxim that 

'•'' 2 he -people b€co7nc like to the State^-nian zvhoni 
they crozvn.'" 

Happy is that people which has, in the saints, or 
martyrs, or heroes whom it reveres, noble ideals. 

Every nation, too, is judged largely by its great 
men. We judge Rome by Julius Cav-iar, and Sweeden 



by Gustavus Adolphus. If men ask what the British 
Islands can produce they are pointed to Cromwell or 
to Gladstone. If we inquire for the flowering of their 
race the Frenchman will perhaps name Lafayette, and 
the German will say, "Look at Luther." 

We could scarcely be a nation without possessing 
some such champions as these— without being able to 
contribute one or two names at least to the world's list 
ofcrreatmen. How invaluable was the character of 
Washington in securing our first recognition among for- 
eign peoples ! The toast of Benjamin Franklin had a 
significance which give it a claim to be often repeated. 
The embassador of England had eulogised his country 
as the sun in the heavens, traversing the entire globe, 
and blessing every land. Then the representative of 
France arose and likened his country to the moon, tread- 
ing a pathway as majestic as that of the sun, and shin- 
incr with a more refined lustre. Franklin stood up in 
his turn, and the resources of comparison seemed to be 
exhausted. Will he compare the United States to some 
star, or to some comet? "Gentlemen," said the Ameri- 
can, "I propose to you the name of George Washington, 
the Joshua at whose bidding the sun and the moon stood 

still." 

What men has America produced since the time of 
Washington who have caused the sun and the moon to 
stand still? I believe that there has been at least one. 

It is nicrh four hundred vears since the keel of Co- 
lumbus grated upon the beach of San Salvador. It 
would be hard to show that any event in secular history 
has been more important than that. New worlds are 
not found every day. The devising of a path of com- 
merce from this planet to the moon could not affect the 
life of man so much as did the discovery of this new 



world. It was a discovery without a precedent and 
without a parallel, and we are preparing to celebrate it. 
We have been preparing through all these four hundred 
years. We have a city which sits by the inland sea, 
like Venice among her marshes. Chicago, with its 
million inhabitants where so recently the buffalo fed 
unscared, will make itself into an epitome of America, 
and send out its card of invitation to all the earth. 

And the whole world will come to visit us. The 
Spaniard will come to see the continent which he dis- 
covered. The Frenchman will come to look upon ihe 
vast empires which he once coveted, and then helped to 
free. The Britain will come to mark the progress of 
his own race in a newer clime. The German will come 
claiming also a near relationship. The Russian will 
come to find out what liberty is like. There will be the 
Icelander with his fur, the Italian with his music, and 
the Chinaman with his cue. The motley procession 
will be filled out by wierd costumes from Egypt and 
Labrador, and all the other highways and hedges of the 
world. Those who do not come in person will come in 
thought, and the attention of the world will be focussed 
upon America. 

We shall have much to show them. They will sail 
up the storied Hudson, stand beside the sublimity of 
Niagara, visit the far Yosemite, and the Yellowstone, 
and compare Lake Superior and the Mississippi with the 
Mediterranean and the Nile. They will compute our 
forests and our prairies, gauge our wells of oil and of 
gas, estimate our mmes, and appraise all our natural re- 
sources. They may have the experience of Sheba's 
queen when they pass through our Patent Office, inspect 
our manufactories, traverse our railway systems, and 
visit our cities -cities which do not stand knee-deep in 



the dust of ages, but which are struggling up through 
the intoxication of prosperity toward self-possession. 

But while our visitors stand thus astonished at our 
material glories, and acknowledge that the half was not 
told them, they will still make some further inquiries. 
"What are ihe ideas," they will ask, "which all this 
wealth represents? What types of manhood does 
America produce? Who are your national heroes?'* 
And we shall say to them : "If you would come near to 
the heart of America, and feel the breath of that spirit 
which has made her truly great, pass by New York with 
the thunder of its commerce, pass by Washington with 
the glitter of its display, and spend a thoughtful hour at 
Mt. Vernon. And when you have done that, pass by 
Chicago with its roar of traffic, and pause beside the 
tomb at Springfield." 

The career of Lincoln may reveal, more than that 
of any other single individual, the genius of American 
institutions and of the American people. He was all 
American. The heroes of the old world are linked to- 
gether in one vast dynasty of greatness. The Ptolemies, 
the Cgesars, the Plantagenets, still bear sway among 
their descendants and "rule us from their urns." But 
Columbia begins a new order. The shadow of the 
pyramids falls upon every European, but it does not 
cross the sea. Like the Greek colonists, to be sure, we 
brought the coals which were to kindle the altar fires of 
our civilization from the hearth of our mother city. 
But we have received fresh fire, also. The Promethean 
torch of our genius has been kindled from God's light- 
ning above us, and from hard blows upon the flinty rock 
beneath us. We indeed revere the gracious influences 
which come to us from the cradle lands, but we have at- 
tained our intellectual majority, and we prove it by 



8 

pointing to men of finest grain and most heroic mould 
developed among surroundings which savor least of the 
old world. 

So, too, the life of Lincoln is an epitome of Ameri- 
ca's history and aspirations. The political, constitu- 
tional, and moral struggles of all our annals converge 
upon the few eventful years of his public life. And so 
it happens that this man came to posses three kinds of 
greatness : He was great for the acts which he per- 
formed ; the liberator of a race deserves to rank above 
the founders of dynasties, or the discoverers of conti- 
nents. But many whose lot it has been to perform 
great deeds have been themselves unworthy, while 
Lincoln was in his own personality greater than any of 
his achievements. The one proclamation by which he 
will be remembered forever did not exhaust his powers. 
It was in him to write a hundred such proclamations. 
There is a third kind of greatness which belongs es- 
pecially to those who serve republics, and which we 
may call representative greatness. There was a time 
when Napoleon had so engrossed the loyalty of hia 
countrymen that he could sa.}', "*/ am France." It was 
a far greater triumph, because a moral one, w^hen 
Pericles enslaved the Athenians to his patriotism and 
his intellect^ so that when he spoke it seemed the voice 
of the state. Such wasthe greatness of Lincoln. Hecame 
to be the representative and embodiment of the best 
sentiments, the triumphant sentiments of his nation, so 
that loyal millions spoke through his lips. 

Lincoln was, first of all, God's man, raised up to 
meet a great emergency. We in America beHeve that 
"There's a divin.ty that shapes our ends, rough-hew 
them as we will." 



He might have worn some other name, but without 
such a leader, it may almost be said, America could not 
have fulfilled her destiny. 

This continent lay fallow for a hundred years after its 
discovery. The Spaniards laid hold of it, but God said, 
"I am tired of your cruelty and rapacit3^" and it began 
to rslip from their grasp. The Frenchmen seemed to do 
better, but God said, "The Catholic religion is too gross 
and formal for this new world," and the Frenchmen fell 
back. England had her day, but in district schools, 
free churches, and town meetings the colonists were 
made ready for the day of independence. No more 
foreiirn dominion! The last sail of the retiring British 
fleet melts into the horizon. America is free ! 

Free ! But now confronted by the problems of self- 
government. And first she must make in a day what it 
took the English people five hundred years to make — 
a constitution. 

Before the constitution came the famous "Ordinace of 
1787," which marked out several great lines of policy. 
This ordinance appropriated public lands for the support 
of common schools. It provided that the territories 
should ultimately be admitted as equal states, thus set- 
tling in advance for America all questions of " Home 
Rule." And thirdly, it decreed that throughout the 
North-west territory, 

*' There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude except as a 
punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted." 

This third provision introduces us to what the impar- 
tial foreign historian Von Hoist has called " the pivotal 
question in American history" — the question of slavery. 
This was the sphinx which in Abraham Lincoln found its 
Oedipus ! 



lO 

We have now to trace the decline and revival of the 
spirit of liberty in America. Our national triumph — 
like most human triumphs perhaps — consists in having 
cured a great fault. The ordiance of '87 was the voice 
of the revolution, expressing the aspirations of ultimate 
America, but it was nearly four-score years before this 
ideal was realized, and the language of the ordinance 
written into the constitution as the XIII Amendment. 

We must not be swift to blame the slave-holders 
for not overturning their social system in a day by an 
act o{ immediate emancipation. It is due, however, to 
the truth of history to show^ how, by unprincipailed lead- 
ers, a portion of our countrymen were induced to resist 
all plans for ^rafi??/«/ emancipation, and finally to de- 
mand as the dearest of their rights the privilege of ex- 
tending ^d,v^xy over the entire Union. 

When our constitution was formed slavery was uni- 
versal, but gradual emancipation was favored by all 
the colonies except Georgia and the Carolinas. Charles 
Pincknev and General Davie were the men who discov- 
ered the value of threats against the union. By such 
threats they secured certain concessions to slavery in the 
Constitution itself— concessions, however, which would 
never have been made had it not been for the general 
belief that slaver}' would die out under existing 
conditions. 

It was not until 1820 that the mistake was discover- 
ed, and that discovery, in the words of the aged Jeffer- 
son, startled the countr}^ ''like a fire-bell in the night." 
It was proposed in Congress to extend the ordinance of 
'87, prohibiting slavery and involuntary servitude, to the 
new state of Missouri, and this proposition was opposed 
by the Southern members. The country awoke to the 



II 

fact that the South was ready to contend for the exten- 
sion of slavery . 

Evidently there had been a great change since the 
revolution. The Northern states had nearly completed 
the work of gradual emancipation, but in the South the 
putting together of a few rods and wheels and pinions to 
form the cotton-gin had made slavery the source of vast 
wealth. This wealth was shared by the slave-breeders 
of the border states, the slave drivers of the cotton 
states, and the manufacturers of the North. And here 
appeared a marvel — as slavery grew n\ore -profit- 
able it appeared to grow less sinful! So vast 
was this chancre that the religious bodies which in 1800 
denounced slavery as "the sum of all villanies" by 1840 
were defending it as a scriptural institution ! With this 
change came the spirit of intolerance. It became im- 
possible for any Virginian to follow Washington's ex- 
ample and emancipate his own slaves. All freedom of 
speech upon this subject was suppressed at the South, 
and the mere discussion of the question at the North was 
denounced as a crime. 

The Missouri matter was settled by a solemn com- 
promise which became a landmark in our history. The 
immediate demand of the South was granted, and 
Missouri admitted as a slave state, but "slavery and in- 
voluntary servitude" were prohibited in all other territory 
north of 36 degrees and 30 minutes. 

We cannot trace in detail the aggressions of the 
slave power. Calhoun was the great advocate of "slav- 
ery as a positive good," but he could not silence the ab- 
olitionists, nor could he make the Southern states grow 
in wealth and population as rapidly as those of the North. 
"The peculiar institution," as they called it, forbade all 
manufacture, and repelled all emigration. The slave- 



12 

holders were fighting against all the laws— moral, social 
and economic — of God's universe, and they made a gal- 
lant fight. 

But at each national census God held up the scales 
between the pine and the palmetto, between free labor 
and the labor of chattels, and it was the Southern arm 
which smote the beam. It was this fact, silently and 
sullenly noted by the Southern leaders, which made 
them eager to annex new territory, and then to force 
slavery by law into all the states, and, when that failed, 
to hasten their appeal to the sword. There was logic 
back of the movement for secession. 

They purchase Florida and Louisiana, but that is 
not enough. The}'^ acquire a vast territory from Mex- 
ico, and vote down the proposition to exclude slavery 
therefrom, but that is not enough. Proposing to in- 
trench themselves in conititutional interpretation they 
invent the doctrine of popular sovereignty. "Congress," 
they say, "has no power to prohibit slavery in the terri- 
tories. That power belongs to the people of each terri- 
tory. The Missouri Compromise is null and void. 
And more than that, we must have a new, iron- 
clad fugitive slave law. Unless this is granted we will 
destroy the Union." 

By this time the moral sense of our people had been 
quickened. In fact there had never been an hour when 
the majority did not really regard slavery as an ev^il and 
a sin. But it takes a long time for the people to organ- 
ize a political machine to carry out their will. Both of 
the existing political parties contained slave-holders. If 
either party, therefore, should offend the slave power it 
would lose its southern supporters and meet with disas- 
ter. The politicians had an interested motive in desir- 
ing to grant the demands of the South. Ostensibly to 



13 

save the Union, really to save their party, Northern 
men yield to the pressure. "Let us settle this exciting 
question by a compromise." Both parties accede to the 
Southern demand, invoke a thousand maledictions upon 
any man who shall ever bring up the slavery question 
again, and call this a "finality " 

Let it be remembered forever that there is no finality 
which is not founded upon right. They called the Mis- 
souri Compromise a finality in 1820. They called the 
death of the Wilmot Proviso a finality. They shouted 
"Finality" in 1850. In 1852 their chorus was "Finality." 
And in 1854 ^^^^y 'airly shieked "Finality." The con- 
temporary newspaper-man caught the ludicrous aspect 
of the case and produced a little ode : 

FINALITY. 
To kill twice dead a rattlesnake, 
And off his scaly skin to take, 
And through his head to drive a stake. 
And every bone within him break, 
And of his flesh mincemeat to m;-ke, 
To burn, to sear, to boil, to bake. 
Then in a heap the whole to rake, 
And over it the benson shake, 
And sink it fathoms in the lake — 
Whence after all, quite wideawake, 
Comes back that very same old snake! 

The finality measures were the very ones which 
compelled agitation. The new law for reclaiming fugi- 
tives brought the horrors of slavery before the people 
with a pathos which no abolition speaker could equal. 
To give a crust of bread, or to point out the North Star, 
was now punishable b}' law. 

"The evil days are come, the poor 

Arc made a prey. 

l-!ar up the hospitable door, 

Put out the fire-lights, point no more 

The wanderer's way. 

For pity now is crime." 



14 

The moral strength of the North rose against the 
Fugitive Slave law in awful majesty. Even the superb 
fame of Webster could not avail, and the Whig party 
was disintergrated almost in a day. The popular ver- 
dict was, " Died from the attempt to swallow the fugitive 
slave law." A new party arose in its place. Public 
interest flamed out in songs, and banners, and torch-light 
processions, and a million votes were rolled up for 
"Free Soil, Free Men, Fremont and Victory." 

But the slave power marched on. It set its foot up- 
on "bleeding Kansas," and proclaimed through the Su- 
preme Court that slaves were property, and as such 
might be carried without forfeiture to any part of the 
Union. The Southerner's threat that he would yet call 
the roll of his slaves at the foot of Bunker Hill Monu- 
ment seemed likely to be fulhlled. 

The cry went up to God for a leader. Give us a 
calm, determined man ; one who will not join in the de- 
nunciations of the ultra abolitionists, nor quail before 
the bluster of the slave-driver; a man of the people; a 
man who understands the situation, and can expound it 
to the masses ; a man who can save the country from 
the South, and the South from herself. 

The man appeared. It was reported that Senator 
Douf^lass, "the little giant" of Illinois, has met his match 
in debating with an untitled lawyer in his own State. 
The country w^as anxious to see this new man - this 
stump speaker from the West, and the brains of New 
York city filed into the Cooper Institute to listen to an 
address from Abraham Lincoln. 

He began with a deliberate historical argument, 
proving to a demonstration that the framers of our Con- 
stitution never dreamed that slavery in the Territories 
was beyond the reach of Congress, and consequently 



15 

that the recent theor}-^ of popular sovereignty and the 
right to carry slave property to any part of the Union 
was a sheer invention and innovation. 

The threats of destroying the Union, which, as we 
have seen, had thus far prevailed with Northern men 
were next swept aside. He answered them in the spirit 
which was becoming in a freeman. 

"You will not abide the election of a Republican President. In that 
supposed event, you say, you will destroy the Union; and then you say. the 
great crime of having destroyed it will be upon us. That is cool. A high- 
wayman holds his pistol to my ear and mutters through his teeth, 'Stand and 
deliver, or I will kill you, and then you will be a murderer.' * * The 
threat of death to me to extort my money, and the threat of destruction to the 
Union to extort my vote, can scarcely be distinguished in principle." 

And in conclusion iie defined the proper course of 
action. 

"Even though much provoked, let us do nothing through passion or ill- 
temper, * * Let us calmly consider their demands, and yield to them if, 
in our deliberate view of duty, we possibly can. * * Thinking slavery right, 
as they do, they are not to blame for desiring its full recognition as being 
right, but thinking it wrong, as we do, can we yield to them? 

Wrong as we think slavery is, wc can yet afford to let it alone where it 
is, because that much is due to the necessity arising from its actual presence 
in the nation, but can we, while our votes will prevent it, allow it to spread 
into the national territories, and to overrun us here in the free states? If 
our sense of duty forbids this, then let us stand by our duty, fearlessly and 
effectively. Let us be diverted by none of those sophistical contrivances 
wherewith we are so industriously plied and belabored, contrivances such asas 
groping for some middle ground oetween the right and the wrong, vain as the 
search for a man who should be neither a living man nor a dead man; such a 
policy of 'don't care' on a question about which all true men do care; such as 
union appeals beseeching true union men to yield to disunionists; reversing 
the Divine rule, and calling not the sinners but the righteous to repentance; 
such as invocations to Washington, imploring men to unsay what Washing- 
ton said, and undo what \Vashin.^ton did. * * Let us have faith that 
right makes might, and in that faith let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as 
■we understand it." 

There was a program which met the situation. 
There was a man who could grasp great principles, and 



i6 

explain them to the humblest voter in the nation. There 
was a leader whom the workingmen of the North and 
the great Northwest could look up to as their champion. 

A few months after the speech in Cooper Institute, 
the Republicans met in National Convention at Chicago, 
and without much preparation, b}^ the inevitabilities of 
the case under Divine Providence, nommated tnis new 
leader for the highest office in the nation. The same 
Providence seemed to prepare the wa}-^ before him, for 
his opponents were divided. The Democratic strength 
was given partly to Douglas and partly to Breckenridge, 
and thus it came about tliat, although he failed to receive 
a majority of the votes cast by half a million, Abraham 
Lincoln became the sixteenth President of the United 
States. 

And now you will ask me, where did he come 
from? What rare ancestry gave to him the impress of 
genius? What kindly stars shone upon his birth? 
What tavored college is enriched by his fame? 

My friends, Lincoln was not that kind of a man. 
He belongs to that higher order of nobility, whose 
patent is conferred by the Almighty. Humanity always 
takes a special pride in those great men who come di- 
rectly from the bosom of the people, and thus demon- 
strate the possibilities of our common cla}'. We cannot 
claim that it is an Anglo-Saxon idea exactly — more 
truly it is a Christian idea, nobly exemplified among the 
peoples of our race — that man individual as well as man 
collective is capable of improvement, and that under a 
favoring government and proper social conditions the 
humblest may cherish high desires and aspirations. 

How many an English child has been thrilled by the 
story of the penniless boy Whittington, lingering on the 
outskirts of London city, and recalled by its prophetic 



17 

bells, in whose peals he seemed to hear the words, " Turn 
again, turn again, Whittington ; thou shalt be thrice 
Lord Mayor of London." It is the glory of our civili- 
zation that it makes the fulfillment of such words possi- 
ble. We all exult in the Laureate's description of 

Some divinely gifted man, 
Whose life in low estate began, 
And on a simple village green: 

Who breaks his birth's invidious bar. 

And grasps the skirts of happy chance, 

And breasts the blows of circumstance, 
And grapples with his evil star; 

Who makes by force his merits known. 

And lives to clutch the golden keys. 

To mould a mighty State's decrees, 
And shape the whisper of the throne. 

And moving up from high to higher, 

Becomes on fortune's crowning slope 

The pillar of a people's hope. 
The center of a world's desire. 

That was the career of Lincoln. No noble spirit 
was ever "repressed" by a more "chill penury " than 
that of Lincoln's childhood. Pioneer life is a feature of 
American experience which has already passed away. 
Those sparsely settled communities in Kentucky, over- 
shadowed by the dim forests, and beset by savage beasts' 
and savage men, were cut off by almost impassible 
mountains from even the rude and feeble civilizaticn of 
the Atlantic States. The people knew that there were 
such things as learning and culture, and their lives were 
adorned by many homely virtues, but their strength 
was absorbed by the bitter struggle with Nature and 
with the barbarians. In a word, Lincoln was born into a 
state of society much like that of England in the time of 
Alfred the Great. 



His grandfather was a comrade of that mighty 
hunter, that intrepid scout of civilization, Daniel Boone ; 
and was shot by the Indians in sight of his own door. 
From the body of the dead pioneer a little boy seven 
years of age ran crying to the house. This was Lin- 
coln's father, Thomas Lincoln. 

Thomas became a carpenter. He was a good man, 
a man of some self-respect, but small ambition. In the 
course of time he married Nancy Hanks. How much 
the republic owes to that simple frontier maiden ! We 
have no likeness of her face ; we can never rear up a 
bust or a statue. She died all unconscious of the si«:- 
nificance of her humble duties, but she is " blessed among 
women." Nancy could read and write, and she taught 
her husband how to form the letters of his own name. 

Years after, eager genealogists traced back the 
great man's lineage to Virginia farmers and Pennsylva- 
nia 'Quakers, and found one ancestor whose name was 
written Mordecai Lincoln, gentleman. But Lincoln's 
fame does not depend upon any such remote propping ! 

We may trace his humble parents from one frontier 
settlement to another: Elizabethtown, Kentucky; 
Hodginsville, where Abraham was born in 1809; Knob 
Creek; ancf Little Pigeon Creek, Indiana. Here the 
family lived in an open shed while their cabin was in 
process of construction, and here, when Abraham was 
nine years of age, his mother died. Her husband made 
a rude coffin, and some months later little Abraham con- 
trived to have a wandering preacher deliver a sermon 
over her grave. 

The next winter was the most dreary of his litei 
"but before the second autumn his father brought a new 
wife from Kentucky— the widow Johnston, and her 
three children. This step-mother took the little boy into 



19 

her heart at once, and gave him both sympathy 2nd 
encouragement. It is probable that she brought into the 
family its first library, consisting — in addition to his own 
mother's bible — of a dictionary, Pilgrim's Proo-ress, 
^sop's Fables, Robinson Crusoe, a history of the United 
States, and a lite of Washington. These books the boy 
mastered from beginning to end, and then resorted to 
the town constable to borrow copies of the Indiana stat- 
utes. His sums in arithmetic were done on the smooth 
surface of a board, and erased with a plane. He soon 
became the letter-writer for the neicrhborhood. 

In her old age Mrs. Lincoln was able to say, "Abe 
never gave me a cross word or look, and never retused 
in fact or appearance to do anything I asked him. His 
mind and mine -what little I had— seemed to run to- 
gether. I had^a son John, who was raised with Abe. 
Both were good boys, but I must say, both now being 
dead, that Abe was the best boy I ever saw or expect to 
see." 

Young Lincoln's time, however, was not all spent 
at the fire-side. His athletic frame was developed by 
hard work, and he celebrated his arrival at the age of 
twenty-one by breaking fifteen acres of new. land for his 
father in Illinois, and splitting walnut rails to fence the 
same. 

Emerging from this home life, we find the fu- 
ture President making voyages upon the flat-boats of the 
Mississippi river, acting as clerk— though giving most 
of his time to reading,— mastering the art of surveying, 
and at last elected to the state legislature and admitted 
to the bar. 

The secret of this marvelous life is forever hidden. 
Wh}' did he choose to study while others were content 
to hunt or to loaf? We professional educators may take 



20 

notice that the schools cannot monopolize the making 
of men. All that can be gained by residence at Oxford 
or Cambridge is a little knowledge, the habit of truthful- 
ness which we call accurac\s and power of thought and 
of expression. These Lincoln acquired in his humble of- 
fice by the most severe self-discipline. Defects of teacher 
or text-book were counter-balanced by the fidelity of the 
student. It matters little that his education began com- 
paratively late in life ; the important thing is that it was 
continued with unwearied devotion to the day of his 
death. After he had already served in Congress he ap- 
plied himself to the science of Logic, and spent several, 
weeks in acquiring a more complete mastery of Euclid's 
Geometry. 

The principal of'' rotation in office " is a vicious one, 
but its application in the case of Lincoln was overruled 
for good. He lelt Congress after a single term in order 
to give other aspirants a chance, and meanwhile un- 
consciously prepared himself for his great mission. He 
had always been a royal good fellow among his com- 
rades. Without " tarrying long at the wine," or touch- 
ing the seductive cigar, he was " the center and idol ot 
every social group." His very presence Vv'as genial, 
and it was with heart}' aflection that his friends recog- 
nized his sturdy and delicate integrity and bestowed 
upon him the sobriquet of " Honest Abe." But during 
the time between his retirement from Congress and the 
debates with Douglas it was noticed that he seemed " al- 
v/ays in haste to leave the bright circle which he was 
entertaining." Narrowly escaping appointments as 
Land Commissioner, and as Governor of Oregon terri- 
tory, he gave these precious years to the practice of his 
profession, and to reiiection and study. 

His political career prfevious to his election had 



21 

shown two things : his rare practical sagacity ; and his 
readiness to sacrifice his personal interests to the inter- 
ests ot'his friends, or to the interests of the cause to 
which he was devoted. He had joined the Whigs when 
they were in a minorit}'^ in Illinois, and had done much 
toward bringing that party into power in the state. He 
had taken the unpopular side upon the slavery question 
in the state legislature and in Congress. He had 
beaten Douglas, the ablest Democratic leader of his day, 
in his own stale. ' 

And this victory was significant. Douglas was 
trying to perform the regular political feat of riding two 
horses. He was attempting to lead the slave-holding 
Democracy of the South, and at the same time to be 
elected to the Senate b}'^ the libert3'-loving Democrats of 
Illinois. Lincoln forced him to cut loose from the 
South in order to hold his own at home. " Honest Abe" 
thus lost his own chance of election to the Senate, but 
he disrupted the Democratic party ! 

Lincoln entered upon his great office at one of the 
darkest hours in all our history. With thirty-three states 
instead of thirteen the imperilled interests were far great- 
er, wliile the saving forces to be relied upon were uncer- 
tain. The troubles of seventy years had come to a head. 
The opponents of the government were united and ready, 
while its friends were taken by surprise, irresolute. The 
prestige of both state-craft and war was with the new Con- 
federac}' alread^y oi'ganized at Montgomery, Alabama. 
He had been elected by far less than a majority of the 
whole people, and he looked out upon a united South 
and a divided North. Under his predecessor treason 
had been suffered to mature its plots in the very capital, 
and high officials had used their power in preparing to 
subvert the government they had sworn to defend. The 



22 

new president knev; iiul on whom he could depend. Even 
Republican leaders like Greeley counseled that the 
North should say to the seceding states "Erring sisters, 
depart in peace." Flis way was hedged by assasins, so 
that he was forced to make a secret night journey from 
Harrisburg to the Capital. It seemed as though the gov- 
ernment committed to him was already a wreck. 

History confirms his own judgment that he had be- 
fore him a task greater than that of Washington. This 
thought was expressed in his address to his* neighbors 
on leaving Springfield, as they stood with their heads 
bared to the falling snow-flakes. 

"My friends, no one, not in my situation, can appreciate my feeling 
of sadness at this parting. To this place and to the kindness of these people, 
I owe everything. Here I have lived a quarter of a century, and have 
passed from a young to an old man. Here my children have been born, and 
one is buried, I now leave, not knowing when or whether ever I may re- 
turn, with a task before me greater than that of Washington. Without the 
assistance of that Divine being who ever attended him, I cannot succeed. 
With that assistance I cannot fail. Trusting in Him who can go with me, 
and remain with you, and be everywhere for good, let us confidently hope 
that all will yet be well. To his care commending you, as I hope in your 
prayers you will crmmend me, I bid you an affectionate farewell " 

And with this speech his task was already begun. 
We are now to mark the career of the rail-splitter as 
statesman, warrior, and diplomatist. His remarks at 
the various stopping places on the route, together with 
his inaugural, constitute a single oratorical eflbrt which 
I shall venture to say is unmatched in history. It was 
one long speech, delivered to the American people a 
paragraph at a time, and perused in telegram and news- 
paper with anxious attention. If the office of oratory is 
to persuade, this oratory was successful. The ultra 
secessionists no appeal could reach, but they were 
treated so fairly that none of their adherents were pro- 
voked to fresh zeal. But the people who were unde- 



23 

cided — slow-thinking people, whose prerogative it is to 
come in at the end and settle a matter — these were in- 
structed and convinced. Many such men had voted 
against Lincoln through attachment to old parties, or the 
fear that he would introduce revolutionary measures. 
They were now led to see that revolutionary measures 
came Irom the other side. The simple speech at Spring- 
field showed that the President-elect was not a hot-head- 
ed radical, not a trifler, and not a co.vard. Men were 
reminded that he was the constitutionally elected ruler, 
who might be replaced by another in four years, but 
whose forcible overthrow would open the flood-gate for 
they knew not what of anarchy. They were convinced 
that he meditated no invasion of the rights of the States, 
but proposed simply to defend government property and 
the Constitution. The old leelings of reverence for the 
Union, planted in their hearts by the fathers of the Rev- 
olution, and watered by the eloquence of Daniel Web- 
ster, were enlisted against the Southern Confederacy. 

Thirty years ago, on Washington's birthday, 
Lincoln was speaking in Independence Hall at this very 
hour. The genius of the place rose within him, the 
spirit of the Lord came upon him, and his words were 
inspired and prophetic. 

"All the political views I entertain have been drawn, so far cis I have 
been able to draw them, from the sentiments which originated in and were 
given to the world from this Hall. * » I have often inquired of myself 
what great principle or idea it was that sustained these colonies. It was not 
the mere matter of separation from the mother-land, but that sentiment in 
the Declaration of Independance which not only gave liberty to the people of 
this country, but hope to all the world, for all future time. It was that which 
gave promise that in due time the weight would be lifted from the shoulders 
of all men, and that all should have an equal chance. Now, my friends, can 
this country be saved on that basis? * * If this country cannot be saved 
without giving up that principle, I was about to say I had rather be assass-i 
nated on this spot than surrender it." 



24 

In all these addresses Lincoln uttered not one foolish 
or improper word. He closed his inaugural by saying : 

"In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, is the 
momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you. You 
can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no 
oath registered in heaven to destroy the government; while I have a most 
solemn one to preserve, protect and defend it. 

"I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not 
be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds 
of affection. The mystic cords of memory, stretching from every battle-field 
and patriot grave to every living heart and hearth-stone all over this broad 
land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely 
they will be, by the belter angels of our nature." 

By the time these words reached the country prob- 
ably more than half a million men who had not voted 
for Mr. Lincoln had resolved to sustain him in his office. 

The same moderation characterized his conduct 
toward the members of his own party. He called his 
greatest rivals into the Cabinet, and none of them could 
feel jealous of a man who was so evidently devoid of 
personal ambition, and who really felt that he was but 
the humble instrument in the hand of Providence. It 
was his good fortune to be assisted by able ministers. 
Seward, Chase, Stanton, Cameron, would have given 
dignity to any administration, but the back-woodsman 
out-topped them all. He surpassed them all in his 
grasp of fundamental principles, and in the ability both 
to read and to lead public opinion. 

The simple administration of the government has 
crushed more than one President. Lincoln attended to 
all this at a time when a million soldiers were supported 
in the field, and the expenditure for war alone reached 
the sum of $516,000,000 a year, and in addition met the 
higher question of State-craft, strategy, and diplomacy 
which were presented by a stupendous crisis. 

The same manly policy which secured the support 



25 

of Douglas and the war Democrats saved the border 
states from drifting into the Rebellion. It was a signal 
triumph to bring the slave states of Delaware, Mary- 
land, Kentucky, and Missouri into line for the Union, 
and to see West Virginia seceding from secession and 
ranging herself vvith the loyal North. The line of 
cleavage fell south of Mason and Dixon's line, and the 
battle lields of the civil war, save one, were on slave 
territor}^ 

We have next to view the self-taught man as a diplo- 
matist. The French occupation of Mexico would seem 
to be a sufficient cause of anxiety for one administration, 
but all our foreign relations were greatly strained by the 
civil war. It is now admitted that France and England, 
arguing, no doubt, from the feeble policy of Buchanan, 
were too hasty in recognizing the Confederate Stai"es as 
a belligerent power. On learning of their action Mr. 
Seward wrote a dispatch to our minister at the Court ot 
St. James which asserted our rights in blunt and unam- 
biguous terms. Seward was a more experienced states- 
man than Lincoln, but not so incapable of hasty action. 
The President took that dispatch and drew his pen 
through the harsher lines, inserted qualifying clauses, 
modified the instructions, and thus averted a serious 
foreign complication. 

So, too, when the enterprising Captain Wilkes, ot 
our navy, overhauled a British steamer and dragged 
from her deck Mason and S'idell, rebel commissioners 
to England, though the whole country was ringing with 
exultation, the President quietly remarked, "I fear the 
traitors will prove to be 'white elephants.' We fought 
Great Britain in 1812 fordoing precisely what Captain 
Wilkes has done. If Great Britain shall now protest 
against the act, we must give them up, apologize for the 



26 

act as a violation of our doctrines, an-i thus forever bind 
her over to keep the peace in relation to neutrals." This 
■was the policy actually pursued, unpopular at the time, 
but averting immediate calamity, and establishing an 
important principle of international law. 

Nor must we omit to mention the exploits of this 
descendant of the Qviakers as commander of the army 
and navy. He had a good Cabinet, but he had, at the 
beginning, a most wretched set of generals. Scott was 
superannuated, and McClelland was afraid of wooden 
guns, and among all the rest the President could not 
find a man who possessed the qualities of a great com- 
mander. The first substantial" Union victory was the 
capture of Forts Henry and Donaldson by a soldier who 
was introduced to the country as "Unconditional Sur- 
render Grant." 

Mr. Lincoln changed generals often, but always 
with extreme consideration for the soldiers who were 
displaced, and he rarely lost the service of an able man. 
He discussed all campaigns with his generals, and often 
directed their plans and movements. It is the opinion 
of competent judges that at the close of the war he was 
as well qualified to plan a campaign as any man in 
America. 

The crownino- act of his great career was not mere- 
ly something which a happy chance gave him the op- 
portunity of performing. It was something for which 
he had prepared the wa}^ and which came, through his 
sagacity, in precisely the best manner. 

He failed in his attempts to induce the border 
states to abolish slavery and receive compensation from 
the government, but he succeeded in convincing the 
country that slavery was the cause of the war, and thus 
turning against it the hatred which existed against 



27 

secession. He had rallied the people in defence of the 
Union, and he now showed them that the way to save 
the Union was to abolish slavery. With loyal armies in 
the field, and a triumphant party behind him, he had the 
power to abolish slavery in any way he pleased ; but he 
showed his conscientious regard for the Constitution, as 
well as for a just expediency, by basing the measure 
wholly upon the necessities of war, and confining 
emancipation to territory in actual rebellion. This wise 
course reduced the objections and opposition to a min- 
imum. 

And he gave the Negro an opportunity to help him- 
self. Treated at first as property which was contra- 
band of war, "Sambo" soon made himself popular with 
the soldiers, and after the proclamation he became a 
soldier himself. This was the bold and finally eff'ective 
stroke of Mr. Lincoln. It strengthened the army, and 
convinced the last doubters at home. "Men who are 
good enough to be soldiers," they said, "are too good to 
be slaves." 

Our leader lived to see the beginnings of a triumph 
proportioned to all the costs and burdens of the war. 
Emancipation did break the back -bone of the rebellion; 
and the death of the rebellion, through emancipation, 
meant a victory for all mankind. 

This was Mr. Lincoln's view of the contest from the 
beginning. The very fact that he was intensely Amer- 
ican made him sympathetic with all the world. The 
true American needs no foreign travel to liberalize his 
mind. We call Webster the great expounder of the 
Constitution. But Lincoln expounded the Constitution, 
and the American idea, more profoundly, and in words 
which live in the hearts of the common people, as he 
stood among the graves at Gettysburg. 



28 

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon this 
continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition 
that all men are created equal. We are now engaged in a great civil war, 
testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can 
long endure. * * It is for us that we here highly resolve that these dead 
shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new 
birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, and for 
the people, shall not perish from the earth." 

He lived to see the success of this great world-ex- 
periment. From the day of emancipation rebellion 
waned. Gettj'^sburg was consecrated by a great vic- 
tory, and with the fall of Vicksburg the Mississippi "ran 
unvexed to the sea." Sheridan v/as in the saddle ; 
Hooker despoiled the eagle's nest at Chattanooga ; Sher- 
man cut a swarth sixty miles wide through Georgia, 
and "captured Charlestown by turninig his back upon 
it." He called for helpers, and again and again he was 
greeted by the chorus 

"We're coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thousand strong." 

His administration was vindicated by a triumphant 
reelection in which he carried every loyal state save little 
Delaware and New Jerse}/, and Kentuck}'^. 

The Confederacy, which had started out with every 
advantage, and with abundant bluster, slowly collapsed. 
The blockade became absolute, and the hope of foreign 
intervention failed. Confederate money became worth- 
less ; flour in Richmond was of poor quality, and the 
price was $i,ooo a barrel ! The rank and file who had 
been dogged into the rebellion by tyrannical leaders 
began to desert. The end is near, for the rebels them- 
selves are over-coming their prejudices and propose to 
arm the slaves in defence of the Confederacy ! 

Sunday morning, April 2d, 1865, Jefferson Davis 
is sitting in his pew at church. Richmond is quiet, and 
few people are aw^are that Mrs. Davis has sent her furni- 



29 

ture to auction, and started for the far South. x\n officer 
walks up the aisle and hands Mr. Davis a telegram. 
Davis reads it, and then staggers out ol church. Lee is 
in the '-last ditch." "My lines are broken in three places," 
he says, "and Richmond must be evacuated this evening." 

Gradually the streets in which traffic has long been 
dead or stagnant become once more as animated as in 
the palmy days of Southern prosperity. There is a 
treading of fact, a murmur of voices, and at last a wild 
roar and rush of vehicles to the railway stations. The 
archives of the Confederacy are placed in boxes. The 
o-Qvernor and legislature of Virginia depart in a canal 
boat, Davis .md iiis cabinet in a freight car. 

It is still a slave city. One Lumpkin, the old and 
reliable keeper of the slave-traders' jail, a structure 
which had witnessed as much sorrow as the Bastile, is 
looking after his property. He hustles out some fifty 
men, women, and children -a frightened, weeping 
throng — and chaining them two and two, cracks his whip 
over the last slave-coffle which will ever tread the soil ot 
America ! But he is too late. The trains have no room 
for such freight. Slavery is in the last gasp. It cannot 
take another step ! 

One after another the gun-boats in the river are 
blown up, and then the flames appear in the immense 
ware-houses. (Such scene as this are not common in 
America. ) As authority relaxes lawlessness and hunger 
walk the streets. The stores are plundered, and no 
effort is made to arrest the flames. . 

And now return, ye spirits of Pinkney and Calhoun, 
to witness this scene ! Think of it, ye Northern Demo- 
crats who eight months ago resolved in your convention 
that the war was a failure ! Note it, ye Southern sym- 
pathizers across the sea, ye holders of Coi. federate bonds ! 



30 

Look back upon it, ye fugitive chiefs of a "lost cause 1" 
Here come the Federal troops to take possession, to re- 
store order, to arrest the flames. Their sabers are flash- 
ing in the morning sun ; their banners flow as gaily as 
though they had never lost acquaintances with the South- 
ern breezes ; their bugles sound the national airs again ; 
and (there is poetic justice and ever\^ other kind of jus- 
tice in it) — they are black men who come riding into 
Richmond ! 

The tramp of armies is followed by the march of 
law. Congress has alread}' submitted a new amend- 
ment, and before this year, 1865, has died it will be a 
part of the Constitution. Read it. 

"Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as punishment for 
crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the 
United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction/ 

"How they pale, — 
Aiicient myth, and sony, and tale, — 
To this wonder of our days, 
V\ hen the cruel rod of war 
Blossoms white with righteous law, 
And the wrath of man is praise." 

And this success was graced with a great clemency. 
Lee asks what terms of surrender ma\' be hoped for. He 
is talking with "Unconditional Surrender Grant," but he 
is unconditional surrender Grant no longer. The 
North has not been pursuing slave-holders — it has been 
pursuing slavery and rebellion, and now that these are 
dead General Grant is ready to feed Lee's starving troops, 
to alloy every officer to retain his side-arms, to parole 
the men who have striven for four 3'ears to destroy the 
goverment, ai:d ev-en to give them their horses that they 
may the soom r reach tiieir homes, and be better fur- 
nished for resuming the pursuits of peace. 

There remained one thing more which the Preserv- 



31 

er of his country could do in her behalf. We expected 
a great deal of him, but we did not expect that. He 
had accomplished the task greater than that of Wash- 
ington ; he had restored the nation, and for the first time 
carried out the full intention of the fathers ; he had 
trodden that long and toilsome way from the log hut at 
Hodginsburg where his life began (a village which can 
not be found on any map) to the head of a grateful na- 
tion triumphing in a great world-contest through his 
leadership"; and linalh' as the high priest of the people 
he had confessed the sins of the North and of the South 
in the sublime words of his second inauguaral, and sum- 
moned all patriots to join in binding up the wounds of 
the nation ; — havins done all this, Providence assicrned 
him one thing more to do for his country — to die for her. 
On the very day when we began to celebrate our 
triumph, the day on which the stars and stripes were 
raised again above the dismantled wall of Fort Sumter, 
Lincoln was shot. The nation was weeping tears of 
joy, and the}^ were turned to tears of anguish in a night. 
We do not need to interpret such providences as that. 
We say tiiat they are a part of an all-wise plan, and there 
we stop. We know, however, that God produces rare 
and wonderful effects upon human hearts by such dis- 
pensations. The}'' stand quite apart from ordinary 
deaths, occurring as we say "in the course of nature." 
We are somewhat prepared for the death of the aged, or 
those who are long ill. Before they go we have propped 
our lives with other supports. We look upon them as 
ripe for the grand transition. But when those who are 
in the midst of life's duties are snatched away we feel as 
though they had been translated, while our souls, from 
the wounds of separation, must bleed to death. And 
such a separation, above all others, leaves the image of 



the lost; one inefFacable upon our hearLt. Such was the 
death of Henry of Navarre in France. Such was the 
death of William of Orange in the Netherlands. 

So me must believe that the moral effects of Lin- 
coln's death were precious in God's sight. It certainly 
prevented any unseemly exultation over the victory of 
the North. It made treason m.ore odious than a thous- 
and executions could have done. — The assassin found 
rebels who would conceal him, but none who would com- 
mend his act. And it has left to the world the picture 
of the great Liberator as he was at the moment of his 
prime and of his triumph. 

Secretary Stanton broke the silence which fell in the 
death chamber when the w^ounded man ceased to breathe, 
by saying, "Now he belongs to the ages." 

He had been so self-etTacing, he had so maintained 
the position of a humble instrument of a great cause, 
that in our eagerness to follow that cause to its triumph 
we had scarcely paused to notice what a leader we 
possessed, or to realize how we loved him. But now, 
with the wreath of an unmatched earthly victory, and 
the halo of a heavenly triumph upon it, his fame rose 
colossal before the world. The tongue of detraction 
was silenced forever. It is hard to believe that this gen- 
tle, forbearing, devoted m.an had been dogged with vili- 
fying epithets and scurrilous charicature. But he was 
beyond it now. The London Puvch had been foremost 
in this work of slander, and here is its manly recanta- 
tion : 

"Beside this corpse tliat boars for winding sheet 
The stars and stripes he lived to rear anew, 

Between the mourners at the head and feet, 
Say, scurrile jester, is tliere room for you? 



33 

Yes, he had lived to shame me from my sneer, 
To lame my pencil, and confute my pen, 

To make me own this hind of princes peer, 
This rail-splitter a true-born king of men." 

Foreign nations were now prompt to recognize his 
merits. But more significant than official acts were the 
spontaneous tributes of individuals and of the common 
people. Queen Victoria wrote to Mrs. Lincoln "as a 
widow to a widow." The students of Paris raised a two- 
cent subscription for a gold medal. It was struck in 
Switzerland, for there was a despotism in Paris. Their 
message was, "Tell her the heart ol France is in that 
little box." An Austrian deputy wrote, "Among my 
people his memory has already assumed superhuman 
proportions ; he has become a m3^th, a type of ideal 
democracy." 

The South soon recognized him as her friend, too. 
General Longstreet hails him as "the greatest man of 
Rebellion times, the one matchless among fifty millions." 

If the blessings of the poor can soothe one's last 
slumber, his rest is sweet. Four million freedmen 
mourned as a father him who had been the Moses of 
their race, and who, like Moses, was forbidden to enter 
with his people into the promised land of peace. 

It requires no prophet to forecast his fame. It rests 
upon great acts, great words, a representative position, 
and a great character. 

His great acts are recorded in the Constitution, and 
in the map of his country, and in the changed status of 
two races. The}' are as wide-reaching in their 
effects as any act of man. He spoke the universal 
language of genius — the speech in which God's 
mightiest speak to each other and to the world 
across the centuries. He may never have heard 
of Pittacus, but he paraphrased that wise man's saying. 



34 

"Victory should not be stained with blood." He was 
not privileged to read the boast of Pericles, but he made 
the same when he said, "I have planted a thorn in no 
man's bosom." 

His character — that rare blending of Christian mod- 
esty, earnestness, and liberality, is reflected in his own 
matchless motto : " With malice toward none, with 
charity for all, with firmness in the right, as 
God gives us to see the right." 

He fulfills better than an}?^ other man whom we 
know so well the x\thenian definition of a statesman : 
"The man who understands the situation, who can ex- 
plain it to others, and who is above all personal consid- 
erations." 

He was the exponent of the best spirit of his coun- 
try and of his age. But more than that, he is a repre- 
sentative of humanity. We cannot monopolize him. 
"He belongs to the ages" not to America, not to the 
ninteenth century, but to the ages. He has all the marks 
of greatness upon him. He is canonized alike by the 
scholar and by the clown, by the select few and by the 
omnipotent many. And it is no fickle choice, no mis- 
placed idolatr}^. No man will ever pause to revere the 
memory of Lincoln without being made better. 

On page 12 after the first break add: 

It was a battle of giants. Lincoln had his forerunners and coadjutors in 
the piercing voice of Garrison, the silver tongue of Wendell Phillip, the 
firey eloquence of Giddings, and the scholarly phrase of Charles Sumner, 
while the verse of Whittier and Lovi'ell crowned a distinct epoch in Ameri- 
can literature. And the advocates and apologists of slavery were men who 
would have graced a better cause. With them we must rank Henry Clay, 
the great compromiser, the spotless ermine of Judge Taney, the restless 
enthusiasm of Alexander H. Stevens, the polished logic of Jefferson Davis, 
and— most powerful and pathetic of all— the reluctant sword of Robert E. 
Lee. 



35 

ODE TO WASHINGTON. 



NELLIE M. SUMXKR, '9 1 O. C. 



Washington— thy noble name 

Time has crowned with living fame; 

On thy brow, serene and high, 

Never dying garlands twine, 

That shall chance and change defy . 

Yes— a nation's homage thine. 

Gladly, on this natal day. 
We our joyful tribute pay. 
At thy shrine our offering lay. 

Through the vista of the past, 
Through the light and shadow cast 
O'er our checkered backward view, 
Bright and clear thy memory stands: 
Nobly firm, thy purpose true 
Leads us on with beckoning hands, 
By thy pure example's might. 
In the narrow paths of right, 
Up to God's serenest height. 

Modest as the simple flower. 
Nestling in its mossy bower. 
From whose lite a fragrance sweet 
Rises heavenward toward the skies; 
Such a heart, with peace replete, 
All things earthly sanctifies. 
Thine a soul like flow'ret, pure, 
L ke the oak, that shall endure. 
Tower of strength, erect and sure. 

When deep strife our nation stirred. 
When the battle cry was heard, 
Down our winding, wave-beat shore 
Echoed wide the hostile tread. 
Thundering de^^p with cannon's roar, 
Angry lowered the sky o'erhead. 
Stars and stripes were waving high : 
Independence was our cry; 
Peace— no more; 'twas strike or die. 



36 

England's wrath we hotly fanned; 
Who will dare assume command? 
In the field 'gainst British skill, 
Who can gain our nation's weal ? 
Who will lead, with steadfast will, 
Northern strength and Southern zeal ? 
Fair Virginia's noble son 
Rose supreme, — the victory won: 
Rose the hero — Washington! 

Mars faid by his warlike power, 

'Twas our nation's childhood hour; 

Then her greatness lay concealed, 

Wrapped in youthful hopes and fears. 

All her future, unrevealed. 

Rested on those early years. 

Thou with firmness, kindness, praise. 

Moulded well those plastic days; 

Led her through youth's devious maze. 

Gifts of God to us by thee, 
Union, peace, and liberty, 
Words most sweet to human ears. 
As we lift our hearts above, 
— E'en to pure celestial spheres, — 
Take a nation's loyal love. 
Warrior, statesman, freedom's son. 
Toil is ended; — glory won. 
Rest from labor — Washmgton. 



ODE ON AMERICA. 



HENRY C. COWI.ES, 93 O. C. 



God save America, home of the Pilgrims! 

Land which our fathers have suffered to save; 
Land which has been through all changing conditions, 

"The land of the free and the home of the brave." 
God save America, save, too, her Sabbath; 

Save it from being devoted to sin; 
Save it, protect it, guard it, defend it; 

May it be still what it ever has beenl 
God save America I 



37 

God free America, home of the Pilgrims! 

Free her from ail that is hated by Thee; 
Free her forever from sectional hatred; 

May she be one from the lakes to the sea ! 
God free our State from the thrall of intemp'rance, 

The curse of all curses which wasteth our land; 
So ihall we lay an eternal foundation, 

Built on the rock and not on the sand, 
God free America! 

God guide America, home of the Pilgrims! 

Guide her through perils that threaten her life; 
Guide her in choosing her laws and her rulers; 

Guide her through dangers of partisan strife, 
God guide America, guide all her churches; 

Guide them in showing the Light unto men; 
Guide them in working, in watching and praying 

Till all of the nations are born once again. 
God guide America! 

God keep America, home of the Pilgrims! 

Keep her from all that would lead her astray; 
Keep her from leaving the God of our fathers; 

Keep her fojever from drifting away. 
God keep America, keep out rebellion; 

Keep her in peace, and defend from the sword; 
Keep her to-day and on through the ages; 

Keep her a nation whose God is the Lord. 
God keep America! 

God bless America, home of the Pilgrims! 

Bless all her efforts to succor mankind; 
Bless her in trouble, bless her in thriving; 

May she in Christ her true destiny find! 
God bless America, home of the Pilgrims! 

Land which our fathers have suffered to save; 
Land which has been through all changing conditions, 

"The land of the free and the home of the brave," 
God bless America! 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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